Plugins like this provide extra functionality beyond Pingdom Server Monitor's default monitoring capabilities. This and 90+ other plugins are available via a one-click install in our web interface.

Simple Process Check

Checks for the presence of one or more processes (based on a list you provide), and raises an alert if some of the processes are not present.

Overview

Provide a comma-delimited list of process names (names only, no paths). This plugin checks that at least one instance of each named process is running, and alerts you if any of the processes have NO instances running.

The plugin will alert you again when one or more of the non-running processes is present again.

Multiple Processes with Different Arguments

You can also check that a process name exists with a certain substring included in its arguments. For example, to check for two instances of node (one with “emailer” in its args, and one with “eventLogger” in its args), set this in process_names: node/emailer,node/eventLogger. If your args list is getting truncated, consider specifying a width in the ps_command option, e.g. `ps -eo comm,args:120,pid`.

You can mix and match pure process_names and process_name/args. Note that the process names are always full string matches, and the args are always partial string matches.

Checking for Ruby Processes

Pingdom Server Monitor runs as a Ruby process. This plugin excludes the Pingdom Server Monitor process from it’s tally of processes, so you won’t get a false positive if you’re checking for a ruby process. Note: if you upgraded from an older version of this plugin, change your ps_command option to `ps -eo comm,args,pid` for the exclusion to work.

The Process Usage plugin keeps tabs on one specific process name. It tracks the number of instances running, the total memory usage, number of restarts, etc.

Simple Process Check (this plugin) keeps tabs on multiple processes (according to the list of names you provide), but provides less information on each process. You should use Simple Process Check if you have a number of processes to monitor, and mostly need assurance that they all are running.